Daughters of the Shtetl : life and labor in the immigrant generation /

A sophisticated study of the working lives of young Jewish women who, between about 1880 and WW I, left Eastern Europe for the US and found work in the needle trades of New York and other cities. Glenn's analysis is satisfyingly nuanced and multilayered: ethnicity, religion, class, gender, technology, and geography all are gathered in a complex pattern. The author is especially thought-provoking in connecting the experience and outlook of these women with their East European roots and with developments in the US garment industry. In doing so she contests the static and culturally isolated image of the shtetl; she also argues vigorously with scholars such as Leslie Tentler (Wage-Earning Women, CH, Jan'80) who downplay industrial employment as force for or expression of change in women's lives. Glenn takes particular pains to consider why young women who assumed their wage work was only temporary were nevertheless such vigorous participants in efforts to improve working conditions. This exceptionally fine book should be automatically purchased by libraries with strengths in women's history, labor history, or ethnic studies, and should be considered by other libraries as well. -A. Graebner, The College of St. Catherine

During the early 20th century, young women left small Jewish towns in Poland and Russia for metropolitan America and found that their work and sex roles changed dramatically. This study shows how they influenced the garment industry with militant strikes, shop-floor activism and pro-union behavior. Photos. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved